The Nepalese Supreme Court has told the government that it must ensure serious human rights violators are not given amnesties by a truth and reconciliation commission, which will investigate crimes committed during a decade-long civil war.
Human rights workers and victims’ groups had feared that the Nepalese government’s plan for a reconciliation commission could mean pardons for serious violators of human rights.
More than 16,000 people were killed and thousands were wounded in the civil war in the poor Himalayan country wedged between Asian regional giants India and China.
The war pitted Maoist guerrillas against government forces from 1996 to 2006. Hundreds of people have disappeared.
A coalition government headed by the Maoist former rebels prepared legislation last year to set up a truth and reconciliation commission, as stipulated in the agreement that ended the war.
However, the Supreme Court said the panel could not offer amnesty in the most serious cases.
“Cases involving grave human rights violations can’t be the subject for amnesty and where amnesty should be granted the participation and consent of the victims is compulsory,” assistant court spokesman Baburam Dahal said on Friday.
Rights workers accused both the Nepalese security forces and the rebels of abuses such as killings, rape, torture and disappearances during the war.
Nepalese human rights lawyer Hari Phuyal welcomed the court’s ruling as a “landmark decision.” Victims of abuse and their families were more cautious.
“The decision has raised our hopes for justice,” said Dev Bahadur Maharjan, who said he was tortured after being arrested by the security forces in 2003.
“It is up to the government to implement the order now. We’ll wait and see how the government fulfills its responsibility,” Maharjan said.
The Supreme Court and lower courts have issued warrants in abuse cases in the past, but those orders have not been implemented and no arrests have been made.
In January last year, a Nepalese army colonel on holiday in Britain was arrested on charge of torturing two people.
He is the most senior Nepalese officer to be arrested in connection with abuses during the conflict.
Setting up the commission could be delayed as political parties are struggling to pull together a coalition after elections in November last year produced a deeply fragmented parliament.
UN human rights officials have said perpetrators of serious war crimes should be punished to ensure that peace can be sustained in one of the world’s poorest countries.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing